Tuesday, January 30, 2024

The Lead Investigator’s Claim That He Interviewed Mark’s Attending Physician


Previous posts (see esp. April 30 and August 31, 2020; August 9, 2022; and August 31, 2023) have brought up the issue that the NYSP investigators of my brother Mark’s death failed to interview his attending physician at the burn unit of the Erie County Medical Center, where Mark had been airlifted after his pickup truck suspiciously burst into flames in a field across from his house in Great Valley, NY, and he suffered third-degree burns over nearly his entire body.  This post discusses further the lead investigator’s claim that he spoke with Mark’s attending physician at the burn unit but that the doctor had nothing to say.

Dr. Edward Piotrowski, my brother’s attending physician, informed me in early 2005 that Mark had deep soft-tissue swelling on his forehead and additional soft-tissue swelling on the left side of his face when he arrived at the burn unit and that, with third and even some fourth-degree burns over about ninety percent of his body, Mark had clearly been doused with a flammable liquid (see post of March 31, 2018).  The doctor also explained that although he had been concerned about Mark’s condition, no one from the investigating authorities ever interviewed him, and therefore he assumed that they had an explanation.

When Atty. Michael Kelly met with Sr. Inv. John Wolfe and Inv. Edward Kalfas, the lead investigator of Mark’s death, he asked why Kalfas had failed to interview the doctor. Kalfas replied that he had called to speak with Mark’s attending physician, but he had nothing to say.  As previous posts have pointed out, Kalfas’s contradiction with Dr. Piotrowski’s statement to me is difficult to explain.  However, two brief entries for 9/24/03 in Kalfas’s narrative in the police report may shed some light on the issue.

First, Kalfas records the following: “Member spoke with [name/position redacted, i.e., blacked out] of Starflight Medivac. [name redacted] stated the victim was unable to communicate at any time during the transport to ECMC.”  Immediately after, Kalfas records the following: “Member interviews [name/position redacted] also states the victim was unable to communicate at any time during treatment.”

It is difficult to comprehend why the names of the medical personnel were redacted in the entries quoted above.  According to the NYS Department of State online in a section entitled Frequently Asked Questions, “All records are available, unless an exception permits an agency to deny access.  Most of the exceptions are based upon common sense and the potential for harm that would arise by means of disclosure.  If disclosure of records would be damaging to an individual or preclude a government agency from carrying out its duties, it is likely that some aspects of the records may be withheld.”

Revealing the name of Mark’s attending physician at the burn unit hardly appears to fit the category of being “damaging to an individual” or “preclud[ing] a government agency from carrying out its duties.”  Fortunately, a nephew of Mark’s and mine who was able to be at the burn unit the morning after Mark’s truck fire spoke to Dr. Piotrowski and gave me his name.

Since the second entry refers specifically to “treatment,” the individual with whom Kalfas spoke was certainly someone at ECMC, where Mark was taken to treat his severe burns.  However, since the name and (presumably) position of the particular individual is blacked out in the (heavily redacted) copy of the police report that I obtained through a FOIL request to the NYSP, one cannot know if it was Dr. Piotrowski or some other individual connected with ECMC’s burn unit.

The doctor presumably had assistance from other personnel in trying to save Mark’s life. Dr. Piotrowski himself told me in two different phone conversations that no one from the investigating authorities had spoken with him.  So, the individual whose name is redacted may well not have been Dr. Piotrowski.

However, the content of Kalfas’s summary of the two entries for 9/24/03 is revealing.  The two terse entries in virtually identical language suggests that Kalfas’s principal, and perhaps only, concern was to learn if Mark was able to speak or communicate in any way with the medical personnel on the airlift to ECMC and at the burn unit.  There is no indication that Kalfas asked the individual (e.g., Dr. Piotrowski or any other personnel at ECMC) what might have been observed about Mark’s condition.  Dr. Piotrowski would presumably not have failed to mention, among other things, that he observed swelling on Mark’s forehead and ordered a CT scan done to rule out bleeding in my brother’s brain.

Kalfas’s statement, then, that he spoke with Mark’s attending physician, who had nothing to say, does not seem credible.  Kalfas then did not bother to request the records for Mark’s treatment at ECMC.  It’s staggering how little work he appears to have actually put into this case from the very beginning.